Plant Identification

Introduction The ability to ide ntify a plant is important for several reasons. From a vegetation management perspective, it is important to know a plant’s identity to determine if it is a weed and the level of risk it poses to desired vegetation. Identification is especially important for early detection of new weeds that have never been documented in an area before and can be targeted for eradication. Plant identification is also important for people who raise livestock and are concerned about their animals eating toxic plants. In addition, many people are interested in harvesting edible plants from the wild or their garden and yard. Knowing what plant you are about to eat could become a matter of life or death. Plant identification can be challenging and even intimidating for the inexperienced. Many people are not comfortable using a dichotomous key and grow weary thumbing through a guide book page by page until they happen to find a picture that looks similar to the plant they want to identify. However, looking at just a few morphological features of a plant can help you narrow down the options or even identify the plant to genus and species . The purpose of this publication is to cover basic questions you might ask about a plant that will help identify plants with speed and accuracy. Examples are in the context of noxious weeds, but the concepts can be applied to plant identification in general. This publication will be especially helpful when used in conjunction with your favorite field guide or dichotomous key. Remember to always use multiple features of a plant to determine identity, instead of relying on a single feature. Occasionally there are variations in some of the rules or generalizations presented below, and looking at multiple characteristics helps to avoid errors in identification.